A New Model of Social Class: Findings from the BBC's Great British Class Survey Experiment

The social scientific analysis of social class is attracting renewed interest given the accentuation of economic and social inequalities throughout the world. The most widely validated measure of social class, the Nuffield class schema, developed in the 1970s, was codified in the UK’s National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) and places people in one of seven main classes according to their occupation and employment status. This principally distinguishes between people working in routine or semi-routine occupations employed on a ‘labour contract’ on the one hand, and those working in professional or managerial occupations employed on a ‘service contract’ on the other. However, this occupationally based class schema does not effectively capture the role of social and cultural processes in generating class divisions. We analyse the largest survey of social class ever conducted in the UK, the BBC’s 2011 Great British Class Survey, with 161,400 web respondents, as well as a nationally representative sample survey, which includes unusually detailed questions asked on social, cultural and economic capital. Using latent class analysis on these variables, we derive seven classes. We demonstrate the existence of an ‘elite’, whose wealth separates them from an established middle class, as well as a class of technical experts and a class of ‘new affluent’ workers. We also show that at the lower levels of the class structure, alongside an ageing traditional working class, there is a ‘precariat’ characterised by very low levels of capital, and a group of emergent service workers. We think that this new seven class model recognises both social polarisation in British society and class fragmentation in its middle layers, and will attract enormous interest from a wide social scientific community in offering an up-to-date multi-dimensional model of social class

Something ‘Old’, Something ‘New’? The UK Space of Political Attitudes After the Brexit Referendum

This study focuses on the political attitudes of UK citizens in the aftermath of the ‘Brexit’ vote. It has been argued that differences within electorates across Europe are found in disputes over taxes, redistribution of wealth and social welfare, as much as in divergent ideas on how to deal with globalisation, migration, and climate change. This article uses the 2016–2017 round of the European Social Survey (N = 1959) to shed light on two important issues in regard to the relationship between ‘old’ and ‘new’ politics. By using multiple correspondence analysis, we first consider the structure, or dimensionality, of the space of political attitudes in contemporary UK society. Contrary to a prevailing discourse that forwards the argument that postmaterial values constitute an altogether separate political dimension in late modernity, we observe that such values collapse into traditional left/right standpoints. Second, we discuss the connection between class (economic capital, cultural capital, and occupational class) and position-takings in the space of political attitudes. We show that class retains a limited effect on political position-takings, where educational capital plays the most important role. The divisions between the politically interested–uninterested, old–young, men–women, and rural–urban are more clearly demarcated than differences between people of different social class positions. Furthermore, polarisation is most prevalent between a highly opinionated, relatively resourceful, small minority of the population

The Anatomy Of The British Economic Elite

This chapter provides the most comprehensive account of the high earners and their partners, drawing on the unusual resources of the Great British Class Survey, which has the largest sample of the very rich of any British data source. It explores the cultural and social features of the British rich to examine what kinds of elites they are. The chapter assesses whether the super-rich are primarily the cultural descendants of the traditional British upper classes. It describes contours of the highest-earning households in the UK, and the extent to which they differ from the rest of the population, from the next-richest, and among themselves to assess how different they are from the merely very well-off. The chapter examines patterns in the largest general British representative panel sample survey, Understanding Society . However, it is uncertain whether these symbols still effectively grasp the nature of Britain\u27s contemporary elites, given unusually rapid economic and social change from the 1970s

Structure of the ALS Mutation Target Annexin A11 Reveals a Stabilising N-Terminal Segment

The functions of the annexin family of proteins involve binding to Ca$^{2+}$, lipid membranes, other proteins, and RNA, and the annexins share a common folded core structure at the C terminus. Annexin A11 (AnxA11) has a long N-terminal region, which is predicted to be disordered, binds RNA, and forms membraneless organelles involved in neuronal transport. Mutations in AnxA11 have been linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We studied the structure and stability of AnxA11 and identified a short stabilising segment in the N-terminal end of the folded core, which links domains I and IV. The crystal structure of the AnxA11 core highlights main-chain hydrogen bonding interactions formed through this bridging segment, which are likely conserved in most annexins. The structure was also used to study the currently known ALS mutations in AnxA11. Three of these mutations correspond to buried Arg residues highly conserved in the annexin family, indicating central roles in annexin folding. The structural data provide starting points for detailed structure–function studies of both full-length AnxA11 and the disease variants being identified in ALS